Still, after four straight sluggish Septembers, the Chargers have to wonder whether there’s a correctable flaw in Turner’s formula. One former NFL executive has theorized that holding training camp at the team’s regular season facility instead of in a remote and more controlled environment may detract from the team’s preseason preparations. That’s a hard hypothesis to prove, but it certainly seems worth pondering.

“I don’t really know right now if there’s a word or if there’s something we can pinpoint that we can learn from,” safety Eric Weddle said Sunday. “There’s a lot of things we just didn’t do right from the start. You put yourself in a hole, it’s hard to get out.

“Even though we’ve done it in the past, teams get better, the league gets better, and we just didn’t pull it out. That’s the tough part to swallow when you’re playing well the second half of the season.”

By the time Darren Sproles fielded the opening kickoff Sunday afternoon at Paul Brown Stadium, the Chargers’ desperation had already deepened. Kansas City’s lopsided victory over the Tennessee Titans meant the best the Chargers could do was to remain one game behind in the divisional race with one game to play. As the earlier games ended, the Chargers’ chance at a wild-card playoff berth evaporated.

Whether any of that influenced the team’s performance against the Bengals is conjecture, but their first play from scrimmage — an ambitious reverse involving two handoffs — resulted in a fumbled exchange between running back Mike Tolbert and receiver Vincent Jackson and a net loss of 19 yards.

The field position that accrued from this helped facilitate Cincinnati’s first touchdown, and the Bengals expanded that lead to 13-0 early in the second quarter. The Chargers narrowed that gap to 13-10 in the third quarter, but were unable to adequately answer three Bengals touchdowns in the final period.

“We knew what we had to do getting ready,” Turner said. “I think our guys did a good job of getting ready. We just didn’t get it done today.”

Just not getting it done may not go quite far enough to mollify fans Turner encouraged to expect more. What it might mean for Turner’s assistant coaches and players probably won’t play out until after the Chargers complete their regular season in Denver.

Every indication to date is that the Chargers are inclined to stay the course with most of their core personnel; that management believes Turner’s best team might still be found beneath the rubble of 2010.

“I’ve been on some teams where you’ve got the wrong type of guys sometime,” defensive end Luis Castillo said. “You don’t know what you’re going to get from guys because the character is not there. (But) when you’re around this group of guys, you always expect the best because you know it means a lot to everybody here.

“As NFL players, the reality of this league is that any team really can beat you. You look at a team that might lose five games in a row and you look at the differential (in those games) and it might be one play. If you don’t play your best every time you go out there, you’re not going to win.”